


The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix)

by Gehayi



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angels, Bad Ideas, Demons, Devils, Faustian Bargain, Gen, Half-Sibling Incest, Kings & Queens, Magic, Matchmaking, Quests, Sorceresses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4182444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/pseuds/Gehayi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Camelot wasn't all bad," Crowley said. "I was happy to reunite Arthur with his sister."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pendragon-Gorlois Family Reunion (The Historically Inaccurate Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Historical Accuracy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/179870) by [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer). 



_"It wasn't all bad," Crowley said. "I was happy to reunite Arthur with his sister."_

Not that that had gone well at all. And it hadn't been his fault, no matter what Aziraphale thought.

The problem had started with Morgana. As humans went, she'd been tolerable. More than tolerable, if he was going to be honest, because in his line of work, he didn't meet many sorceresses who were the spiritual equivalent of Switzerland. Most sorceresses ended up going the decadent or corrupt route, and sooner or later that led to relying on the forces of evil as the source of their power, which Crowley regarded as being only slightly less idiotic than relying on the National Grid [1]. And relying on the forces of good as a source of magic was even worse, as a fair number of those Up There got distinctly _huffy_ about humans wielding enough power to create wonders, if not miracles.

He hadn't known that when he'd met her, of course. He'd been sent to cause trouble for Arthur—which Crowley had thought was useless, since Arthur, while not yet king of anywhere, was still eagerly swinging a sword in numerous blood-drenched battles, which meant that he was not only not shrinking from trouble but actively causing it—and some vile diabolical bureaucrat had thought that Arthur's sorceress sister would be the perfect place to start. And so he'd trooped to where Morgana was living…

…which had turned out to be a convent in Cornwall.

[1]That is, you were promised a reliable source of power that would always be there until the day when you abruptly found that it _wasn't_ , which, in accordance with Murphonic law [2], would be exactly when you needed it the most [3].  
\- back to text

[2]As in "Murphy's Law." The adjective can't be "Murphic" because a) that would look too much like "morphic" and "morphin," and no one wants to get Murphy's Law mixed up with either Harry Potter or the Power Rangers and b) "Murphic" would make sense, which would be in direct contravention of the law itself. Obviously, you can't have a law stating that if anything can go wrong, it will and expect the adjective to go _right_.  
\- back to text

[3]Demons often have a rather basic sense of humour.  
\- back to text

***

"A convent?" Crowley shouted at the Development of Demonic Disservices Coordinator. "You actually sent me to a _convent?_ "

The Dee-Three-Cee—whose demonic name, if Crowley recalled correctly, was something along the lines of Tapeworm or Mugwort—sniffed haughtily. Somehow, that sound scraped against Crowley's nerves like long, sharp carpentry nails slowly and lovingly screeching across an infinitely large chalkboard. 

"Of course I sent you to a convent," he replied irritably, as if Crowley really should have known better than to ask. "It's a typical place to conceal a young lady of royal blood."

Crowley didn't see why, since humans already knew that immature nobles of all sexes attended convents and monasteries as part of their schooling and since convents weren't noted for being military fortresses. Putting a princess in a convent as a means of concealing her existence from well-armed enemies, therefore, struck him as rather backwards.

With some difficulty, he managed to avoid saying this. Obviously someone was miffed at him again. Moloch, maybe. Or Belial. And they'd tossed him into the claws of this fetid little mountebank, who had concocted an assignment that, at best, would cause him a great deal of pain by forcing him onto holy ground and, at worst, if the nuns spotted him for what he was, would get him either exorcised or temporarily discorporated. He hated it when he lost bodies. Hell wasn't all that quick to replace them on the best of days.

So instead he gave the creature the merriest and most light-hearted smile that he could manage. "I suppose that you _do_ have a description of her?"

"Dark hair, dark eyes, likes magic," recited the Development of Demonic Disservices Coordinator in a singsong voice. "I trust that should be sufficient? _I_ have work to do."

"Indeed," murmured Crowley, strolling towards the inter-dimensional office "door" that would take him back to Earth, moving with the practiced languor of someone who had a slightly longer eternity ahead of him than anyone else and who could well afford to faff about for half-past forever. "You're wasted in your current position. Your descriptive powers are positively unerring."

Petty, of course. And it wasn't going to do any good. But even if being sarcastic to nominal superiors wasn't practical or even wise, sometimes you just had to let go.

***

Crowley eventually inveigled his way into the convent by posing as an elderly gardener on the run from battle and war. [4] It took some work, not to mention quite a few illusions, as the Abbess Æðelberga [5] was both truly devout and truly practical. The sort of person that Aziraphale would like. In fact, at one point Crowley found himself peering closely at her, wondering if she was Aziraphale. The angel didn't like illusions much, but angels, like demons, were allowed to disguise themselves with them in a pinch.

Not that he actually wanted to talk to Aziraphale. They were enemies, after all, and if he was supposed to be preventing a source of great inspiration for humans while being harried by petty bureaucrats…well, it wasn't the time to be caught talking politely to an angel. But if Aziraphale happened to be sitting in front of him, wearing a wimple—well, that was completely different. You _had_ to talk to someone who was interrogating you, whether it was a matter of torture or employment. [6]

He was, of course, not in the least disappointed when the abbess turned out to be no more than an abbess.

Though he really only needed the title of gardener to access the convent's grounds, he kept up his end of the bargain, terrifying orchards, vegetables and—most importantly—herbs into flourishing. He'd never known a sorceress yet who didn't go into a frenzy for magical herbs. Sooner or later, the girl would leave the convent to pick a few, they would talk, and he'd find out what sort of temptation suited her best. Simple. An imp could do it.

He was astonished, therefore, to be awakened one night [7] by a thousand plants screaming [8] that his target was climbing over the wall of the convent with several bags for seeds, roots and leaves slung over her shoulder …and hadn't given any of them so much as a glance.

It was but a matter of moments for him to slink over to the wall—invisibly, of course—and wait for her to alight on the ground and begin searching for herbs that he couldn't help but notice weren't nearly as lush as the ones he'd grown. And finally, still half-asleep and forgetting that he was supposed to be invisible, he asked her why she wasn't picking the _good_ herbs.

Most girls would have panicked (and justifiably) at digging magic herbs alone near a forest at midnight, let alone hearing a man's voice coming from nowhere. Not this one. She stretched out her hand and a large silvery circle of protection materialized in the grass around her. A wave of the other hand, and floating shields blazing with light and angelic runes appeared on either side of her.

Crowley gritted his teeth and blessed under his breath. No one had mentioned—not to his face, and not in any of the girl's files—that she could do protection spells almost without thinking. Very few demons were sent to tempt people who knew how to play keep-away.

Evidently she heard him, for she turned towards him (or at least towards where his voice had come from) and sighed. "I can't _use_ the herbs that you grew, demon," she said patiently. "They're tainted with fear and black magic. I could use them to curse people or to terrify them, but they'd be no good at healing sick bodies or minds, much less protecting my little brother, wherever he is."

Crowley's shoulders sagged at her words. _I should have known better._ Magic wasn't really his forte, of course, but being outsmarted by a mortal was still humiliating.

The only good thing was that Aziraphale didn't know about this. He could just see the angel's face if he ever learned the truth. Weaselling his way into a convent to tempt a young warlord's royal sister? Aziraphale would be crushed with disappointment. And the fact that they were officially enemies wouldn't matter. In the angel's mind, there were some things you didn't _do_. Useless to point out that Hell didn't think that way. 

The girl's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Aren't you supposed to be threatening me or tempting me or trying to possess me? Because all you're doing is standing there looking wretched, and that isn't particularly infernal."

Crowley aimed his best glare at the girl. She didn't seem impressed.

On the other hand…she knew he was a demon, and she wasn't running away or praying. So perhaps that was a point in his favour.

"I didn't think that trying to tempt you would be particularly effective at the moment," he said huffily, trying to wrap a few remaining shreds of dignity about him. "And I really doubt if threatening you, attacking you or possessing you would inspire you to trust me." 

Her lips twitched. "Do you expect me to trust you _now?_ "

"We _are_ talking. And neither of us has slaughtered the other…so far."

"I don't know that I should award you any credit for not killing me."

"Considering what some demons are capable of—and what some humans are as well—I think that we _both_ deserve credit."

That earned him a loud, full-bellied laugh. "All right, you have a point." She shook her head. "Really, you are the oddest demon I've ever met…and I have met a few others." Before he could ask her what she meant by "odd," she continued, "I can't go on calling you 'demon.' And I can't remember your name as the gardener."

He'd been using the name of Old Adam as the gardener, but he didn't bother to remind her of that now. "Crowley."

She studied his face in the light of her glowing shields and then, as if she'd seen something that suited her, nodded. "Your oath that you will not use my name against me, Crowley."

"What?!"

Again the girl spoke in that terribly patient tone. "Names have power."

 _Yes. That's true._ "I'm not planning on using your name against you or yours."

"People often do things without planning to. Your oath that you won't, whether you plan to or not."

 ** _Look at it this way,_** his mind whispered to him. **_You know Aziraphale's name, and you wouldn't use that against him._**

_She's human. Aziraphale's…different._

**_So? One of the things you've always hated about Hell is its habit of using who you are as a weapon against you._ **

That made him shiver, though he really wasn't sure why. It didn't matter if anyone from Hell overheard that thought. Every demon hated Hell, whether they admitted it or not.

"All right," he said, giving in. It would make his job far tougher, but the idea of magically binding her with her own name had brought back memories he would have preferred to remain buried. "I won't use your name against you. I promise."

The girl considered this, evidently wondering what the promise of a demon was worth. And the answer, he knew, was "Not much." Hastur and Ligur wouldn't have had the slightest compunction about promising and then using her name against her five seconds later.

"Let's just say that I like to do things that people don't expect," he said, sounding wearier than he had intended. "I can't say what will happen if I'm ordered to use your name to ensorcell you, but I'm not _planning_ on betrayal."

"Aside from trying to damn me."

"Not even that yet. All I did was make some magical herbs grow faster than usual so that we'd have a chance of talking. And have I honestly tempted you to do anything tonight?"

The girl glanced at the circle of protection and the glowing shields. "Nothing I wouldn't have done in anyone else's presence," she admitted, exhaling puffs of air, first at the shields and then at the silvery circle surrounding her. Both spells winked out like candle flames that had been extinguished. Conjuring a ball of blue-white flame that floated just above her hand, she stepped towards Crowley.

"Hello," she said quietly. "I'm Morgana."

[4]Early English kingdoms were constantly embroiled in battle. Since transportation and roads were both in somewhat less than ideal conditions, Crowley felt that he could claim to be fleeing a fictitious war practically anywhere in Albion and get away with it.  
\- back to text

[5]In modern English, Aethelberga. Or, if you're American, Ethelberga.  
\- back to text

[6]Granted, they're often the same thing.  
\- back to text

[7]He was sleeping under a wild plum tree outside the convent grounds. Crowley had decided that he would work for the convent in order to meet his target, but if anyone in Hell expected "the gardener" to sleep in a convent-owned cottage on consecrated soil, they would be _grievously_ disappointed.  
\- back to text

[8]Admittedly, it wasn't the sort of sound that would have registered with anyone who _wasn't_ a temporarily corporeal spiritual entity.  
\- back to text

***

He spoke often to Morgana after that, though rarely when the nuns could overhear and never where anyone could see. And, truth be told, he didn't do much tempting. If he was anything, it was mainly a sounding board for a young woman of eighteen who was homesick for a home she'd known all too briefly, bored, and very, very sick of concealing her abilities. 

He also heard a fair amount about Morgana's parents and siblings, none of whom she seemed to know that well. She scarcely ever mentioned her mother. Her father had died before her brother had been born; her stepfather had had the boy put into fosterage when he was still very small, and she could not ever remember hearing the name of her brother's foster father. Their older sister, whose name Crowley never _could_ remember, had married some petty Northern king when Morgana and her brother had barely been toddlers. Morgana knew little of her and recalled less, save that she'd had an avalanche of children. Crowley felt that the woman sounded domestic, thoroughly respectable and not a little dull…a certain disappointment to Morgana, if they ever met, and no use to him.

Tempting her—which, after all, was what he was here to do—proved to be distinctly difficult, as the things that Morgana coveted were generally considered good. He couldn't fault her for wanting to leave the convent; in fact, he supported this wholeheartedly, because being there made him feel as if his skin was continually being scraped by a cheese grater. And a loving home and family…all right, there were a billion or so ways to twist that, but Morgana was clever and refused any offers that even looked like they might go wrong. She liked him, but she didn't forget what he was. Not for a second.

So everything stalled. Crowley fretted over this, because for once Hell knew exactly where he was. He felt as if he was sitting motionless with a target on his back.

In an effort to break the deadlock, he focused on one thing that he knew Morgana cared about—her little brother. But here, too, he ran into trouble. Simply telling her that his name was Arthur and he was the one tearing things and people apart with a magical/holy sword seemed like the way to go; if he knew anything about Morgana, it was that she'd leap over the wall and race to her brother's side. This would probably result in Arthur and Morgana conquering the entire island in less than a week with swords and spells and founding a magical empire. Magical empires always went bad eventually, and in the meantime he'd be living in a palace, not sleeping under a plum tree, and drinking wine again. It wasn't as if he could touch the consecrated variety. He might even be a vizier, if he could sell Morgana on using that title. Viziers were _allowed_ to be evil; it was practically in their contracts. Morgana would get wealth, power, magic, and co-rule of a kingdom (total rule if Arthur got killed in battle, as warrior-kings often did) and he himself would get a comfortable nest for the next few centuries. All for just telling her where the wretched boy was. 

Unfortunately, when he tried it, he found that someone in the Lowerarchy had made it impossible for him to tell Morgana the truth. Further experiments revealed that writing, pictures, sign language [9]and even charades about Arthur were likewise blocked. All he was allowed to was drop hints about how she might reunite with her baby brother.

"Though I don't really understand why you'd want to," he told her early one autumn morning when she was supposed to be at prayer. He'd persuaded her to come and talk to him while they picked apples—after all, work was prayer, too. "You haven't seen Arthur since you were what, seven? And he was five? That was eleven years ago. You were different people then. You might not even like who he is now." 

"But I might," Morgana replied, a wistful note creeping into her voice. "And he might like knowing that he has a sister."

"Wouldn't his foster parents have told him that?"

"They should have, but you never know. Uther didn't much like having a stepdaughter who was good at magic. Maybe he told Arthur's foster parents not to mention me."

"Good at magic at _seven_?" She must have been a prodigy. "Where did you learn it?"

She shrugged."Herb lore from old women. Some potions from cooks. A few spells from old books, though not many. A lot of it I worked out as I went along."

After a few moments of pondering this, Crowley asked, "Did you ever try drawing your brother to you with a summoning spell?" 

Summoning spells weren't intrinsically evil, after all. They did compel the target against his, her or their will, which could be dodgy from a human point of view, but it wasn't as if Arthur would be compelled to do anything other than show up at the convent door. Hopefully once he did, Morgana would go off with Arthur and then he, Crowley, could walk away from this convent for good.

She gave him a look sharp enough to slice the apples she was picking. "No. I don't know any. Do you?"

"No. But I could probably find one." Hopefully without involving Hell, even if this was the closest he'd come to a successful temptation in months. In that respect, Morgana was very bad for his self-esteem.

"If you could find it by midwinter..." She scowled and chewed on her lip, clearly unsure about asking him for a favour."It's a powerful time for spells, especially those involving endings and beginnings."

Crowley wasn't certain that he'd be allowed to find a spell any more than he'd been allowed to speak of Arthur. But one look at Morgana's young face—so filled with the craving for family and so angry with herself for asking him for help—decided him. 

"I'll try," he said weakly. "I'll try."

 

[9]The first recorded manual alphabet system wouldn't be created for another twelve hundred years-plus, thereby creating the sort of anachronism that would later give Arthurian scholars migraines, but Crowley was getting a bit desperate.  
\- back to text

***

Crowley spent the next month appearing in the dreams of various sorcerers, witches and wizards, searching for trace memories of the strongest possible summoning spell. He also tried to inspire them to seek it while they were awake in the hopes that he might be able to read the spell through their eyes; this was tricky but, if he concentrated hard enough, possible. 

He also did his best to discover where Arthur was, since Morgana was going to have to know that for the sake of the spell. To his annoyance, he found himself running into a psychic wall every time that he sought out Arthur. It wasn't that he couldn't get through it, but he couldn't do so without causing severe mental and emotional damage to whomever was casting it. If the human was aligned with Hell, someone would be furious that he'd cost Hell a dangerously powerful agent. That might mean punishment, even permanent recall. If the human was on the side of Heaven, he'd be in even worse trouble; not only would Aziraphale be upset—which would be deeply unpleasant—but the angel's superiors were the sort that would hold a grudge, if not until the end of time, for several millennia, at least. If he shattered the mind of another demon, he'd be abandoning his usual policy of keeping his head down and his feet far, far away from Hell's games of power and ambition. And that could be fatal. Fatal at _best_.

Or he could avoid enraging everyone and find a way to walk around the psychic wall. Yes. He liked that idea. 

Regrettably, he wasn't very successful at it.

Then, two days before All Saints' Day, while he was gardening, i.e. terrifying the few plants that actually grew in late autumn, he got a message. Sister Bertana, a fragile young postulant with a tendency towards preternatural visions, strode up to him with a vicious leer on her face. _"'Allo, Crowley. Took long enough to find yer, y'wanker."_

Crowley did his best to keep himself from grimacing. "Hello, Hastur. What are you doing here?"

_"Got a message for yer, haven't I?"_

"Yes, I gathered that. What's the message?"

_"There's a fair number of people not pleased with yer running out on yer assignment like you done. Arthur's gettin' stronger an' you ain't done a bloody thing. An' fuckin' helpin' a convent. That's disgustin'. There's talk o' recallin' yer so y'can get re-educated, like, an' sendin' in someone who's got th' stomach for the job."_

Crowley felt as if everything in him had turned to ice. He'd seen those who'd been through Hell's "re-education" programme before—or what was left of them. All had finished up as mindless, eagerly obedient creatures who could only parrot what they were told to say. He'd had a good look at one of them once. Even as it favoured him with an expression of cringingly servile helpfulness, its eyes—all ten thousand of them—had been full of screams.

"I've done exactly what I was supposed to do," he said evenly. "As anyone would know who's been reading my reports, I've been tempting Arthur's sister. And I've finally found what she wants."

_"The summoning spell. Been makin' a lot o' noise tryin' t'gather the bits an' pieces o'one, 'aven't yer?"_

"I'm sorry, do you see an infernal library hereabouts?"

_"What's she want to summon, then?"_

"Her brother. She hasn't seen him since he was about five."

Hastur/Bertana brightened up considerably at this. _"'Asn't she. Well, that's got possibilities. Y'might've mentioned that earlier. 'Ang on, I've got to talk to some people."_

There was a long pause. Then Bertana, her jaw slack and her eyes rolled up so that only the whites were showing, fell bonelessly to the ground—like a rag doll that had just been dropped from a child's hand. Crowley waited, certain that the message was not over yet.

When it arrived, Bertana neither awakened nor shaped the words by seeming to speak them, as Hastur had made her do. The words simply emerged from her open mouth in an unwelcome _basso profundo_ that made his teeth ache.

**_CROWLEY._ **

Crowley shivered. "Yes, Lord?"

**_YOU SAY YOU HAVE BEEN TEMPTING THE SORCERESS._ **

"Yes." 

**_WE HAVE RECEIVED NO INFORMATION FROM YOU ABOUT THIS._ **

"I've _been_ sending reports!" More or less accurate ones, even. "I don't—oh."

**_THAT SOUNDED OMINOUS, CROWLEY._ **

"This assignment came from the Development of Demonic Disservices Coordinator. Chaos Division."

**_FROM US, ULTIMATELY, WE ASSURE YOU._ **

"Er...yes. But I think that he may have...um...withheld...some of the information I've been sending him. That's why no one realised that I was right here." _Where I was supposed to be._

There was a longer pause.

**_HE WOULD HAVE TO BE VERY FOOLISH TO DO THAT._ **

"Yes, Lord," Crowley murmured, bowing his head. Hell ran on information and rumours. Misdirecting superiors as thoroughly as the Dee-Three-Cee had done was a _very_ hostile move. Not that he normally would have minded, but misdirection and scheming stopped being funny when they started affecting him.

 ** _WE WILL LOOK INTO THIS. IN THE MEANTIME, WE WILL SEND THE SORCERESS THE SUMMONING SPELL SHE SO DESIRES._**

"Er...may I ask when, Lord?" 

**_THAT IS NOT YOUR CONCERN. YOU WILL LEAVE THIS PLACE TONIGHT—WITHOUT SAYING A WORD TO ANYONE—AND MAKE YOUR WAY TO CAMELOT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. MATTERS ARE COMING TO A HEAD. WE WILL NEED YOU THERE._ **

***

He was actually at Camelot by late January, only two days ahead of Arthur and his army. Seventeen, an allegedly brilliant battle commander, the owner of a magical sword, and about to be crowned king. No, this didn't look like a recipe for disaster at all.

Camelot turned out to be an old Roman fortress heated by hypocausts; hot air from perpetually stoked furnaces warmed spaces beneath both floor and walls. Crowley sighed with pleasure as he felt the heat radiating from both, and resolved to convince Arthur to remain inside Camelot for the remainder of the winter.

 _And that might not be too hard,_ he thought, as the war, or whatever Arthur had been fighting with the weaker Saxon, Welsh and Pictish kings, was indeed over. He'd trounced most of them on the battlefield and convinced a fair number of the rest to kneel before the trouncing had begun. Most of the soldiers, especially the cavalrymen, were convinced that Arthur was Uther Pendragon all over again, in swordsmanship and strategy as well as in blood. Crowley was prepared to accept this, but he doubted whether it was a good thing, at least as far as the humans were concerned. The boy might well be good at killing people, but there was generally more to ruling than that.

At the moment, however, everyone in the castle—except for Arthur—was immensely excited about Arthur's upcoming coronation and marriage. The bride's father was a king, or at least was called a king. From what Crowley could see, everyone in Europe who owned a hill and had two bricks to pile on it was called a king. This one—Leodegrance—was a Breton descended from Romans who had fought in Albion [10] who owned enough horses to provide steeds for a sizable army, and since there were still two or three powerful holdouts who had said "Thanks, but no thanks" to the prospect of being ruled by Arthur, Crowley supposed that made having the horses desirable. Why Leodegrance's daughter had got tossed into the bargain he had no idea. He hoped that the girl was at least tolerable and couldn't sense demons.

This last was a serious concern, as Crowley had already run into Arthur's eternal shadow, a black-haired, black-eyed, bearded young Welshman of nineteen or twenty called Merlin. Crowley thought that "Merlin" might be Arthur's approximation of the name Myrddin [11]. Whatever he was called, however, he was trouble, for he'd spotted Crowley for what he was instantly; the sudden tension and pallor in his face as he gazed at Crowley were dead giveaways. Crowley strongly suspected that the glamour he'd been casting over his snakelike eyes since he'd arrived at that blessed convent might as well not be there as far as Merlin was concerned. Maybe Morgana had seen through it, too; that would explain a lot. 

It was annoying to have skills that he'd relied on for so long fail.

Most of Arthur's warriors, especially the cavalry, were currently feasting in the fortress's main hall. Crowley had consumed as much of the feast as he could while privately resolving to teach the cooks that foods other than boiled mutton _did_ exist, even in the middle of winter. He'd also convinced some indifferent ale that it was actually delicious Byzantine wine, because he insisted on consuming one thing per feast that actually tasted good. 

Judging from Merlin's swift, sharp stare in Crowley's direction, he'd spotted that, too. 

So now he was exploring Camelot, mostly because he didn't have anything else to do and because it helped to know where all of the exits were. There were plenty of servants around, of course, but they weren't noticing him because he didn't _want_ them to notice him.

He meandered through a number of rooms in the fortress: all four gateways, various barracks, the _fabricae_ or workshops attached to each of the barracks, the baths, and the _praetorium_ or house of the fort's commander, which would probably now become the king's quarters. At last he wandered into the room that had once been the _sacellum_ , or regimental shrine. He took care to step around the large sunken pit in the floor that had acted as a vault for the regimental pay chest [12], and then leaned against the wall, wondering what, if anything, he was supposed to do here. He hadn't received any instructions for more than three months now.

_"Crowley?"_

Crowley turned his head. A monk with a fluffy blond tonsure was standing in the doorway to the _sacellum_ , staring at him. It wasn't quite on the level with Merlin's stare, though, and Crowley was grateful for that.

"Hello, Aziraphale," he said, miracling up a couple of large Roman dining couches for the two of them. "Have a seat."

Aziraphale hurried over to one of the couches, his habit fluttering about him. "It's Brother Mungo when we're in public," he added, looking a trifle embarrassed. "It's a Celtic nickname, or so I'm told."

"It really doesn't suit you," replied Crowley, seating himself on the opposite couch and then stretching out comfortably. "Sounds more like the sort of silly name you'd give an elf in an epic."

"Oh, I don't think so," murmured Aziraphale, as he snapped his fingers and made a large clay bottle of wine appear, floating in mid-air. "Definitely _not_ an elf. What are you called around here, by the way?"

"I haven't settled on a name yet. As far as anyone knows, I'm one of Arthur's cavalrymen." Crowley waved his hand and made a couple of silver and gold goblets materialize in mid-air as well. "I take it you're here on assignment, same as me."

"Of course." Aziraphale poured them both some red wine and then gave Crowley a faintly reproachful glance. "I suppose that you were responsible for what happened over Christmas."

Crowley felt a twinge of uneasiness in what would have been his stomach, had he been human. "Tell me what happened, and I'll let you know if I am."

Aziraphale sighed, settling back on the couch, looking very odd and not remotely monk-like. "We were up north in December. Near the Orkneys, as I recall. Pretty country, but bitterly cold. You'd have hated it. Anyway, Arthur kept insisting that he felt as if there was something he needed to do, as if he was being compelled to find someone. He seemed...driven. Merlin—I take it you've seen him—felt that Arthur was being enchanted and kept brewing potions and spells to clear Arthur's head. They worked, but not for long."

Crowley shook his head. None of this made an ounce of sense. "Go on."

"Well, Arthur was in his tent, planning the tactics for the next battle. Merlin was there as well, and Arthur's foster-brother Kai—a kind chap, though lots of the men are afraid of him because he's practically a giant—and a few other battle leaders. And me, of course, taking the notes, because, well, a king needs a scribe. 

"And then, suddenly, as Arthur was talking about who would be leading the vanguard next time, he vanished—poof—into thin air. Merlin went wild. He turned the camp upside down to find him. I think that he even suspected me for a bit. The boy's got a knack for seeing what people really are."

"I noticed," Crowley said, a thread of grimness creeping into his voice. "Where was Arthur? No, don't tell me; let me guess. Cornwall."

Aziraphale gave him a very peculiar look. "Not at all. He was on one of the Orkney Islands. He spent the night with a sorceress-queen."

"What!"

"Oh, yes. Quite lovely, with dark hair and dark eyes. Not at all a nice woman, though, from what I heard, and not remotely faithful, not that her husband seems to mind. Has quite a brood of children, too—four boys and two girls. And every one of them the image of her and her husband, not that _that_ proves anything."

"When you say 'spent the night with,' do you mean—"

"In a sexual sense, yes. And honestly...well, fornication isn't precisely our thing, but one thing led to another, and they _were_ willing."

"And I suppose he was ensorcelled to be." 

"No. From what he said, he was carried off magically, but he wasn't forced into anything. He was welcomed into the castle and treated like...well, like a king...by a very lovely older woman. And things got...intense...very quickly. I don't think he minded one scrap of that. Things started going wrong when he popped back into the camp, convinced it was all a dream, and learned from Kai that this particular island was the home of the sorceress-queen Morgause...his older sister. Half-sister, I should say."

Crowley shoved his half-full goblet back into the air, leaned back against the couch and began groaning. "Two dark-haired, dark-eyed sorceresses in the same family. They even have practically the same name—Morgause and Morgana. No wonder my superiors got confused!" And, hurriedly, he explained about Morgana and his attempts to reunite her with her brother.

"Well, you certainly bollixed _that_ up," Aziraphale said when Crowley was done. "It never occurred to you that you were tempting the wrong person?"

"I didn't do anything wrong," Crowley snapped, trying to keep his temper in check. "I tempted the person I was told to tempt! And I certainly wasn't planning on Arthur committing incest with Morgana or Morgause. That was someone else's brilliant idea."

Aziraphale sighed. "Well, it's done now. Though you might want to be sure—"

"Sure of what?" 

"Morgause does have six children. She might end up with a seventh."

Crowley wondered if that had been the objective all along. Hell did have a fondness for creepy children and tainted family lines.

"I'll look into it," he said grimly, snatching his goblet from mid-air and swallowed the contents in one swig. "By the way, do you think that you could get me an audience with Arthur? I have a question I want to ask him."

Aziraphale favoured him with the expression best known as "the fishy eyeball." "Crowley, please. This place is very important to humanity's future. All sorts of dreams, ideals and values—for good or ill—will be born here. Don't do more damage than you have to, all right?"

"I'm not planning on doing any damage at all," Crowley replied in an injured tone. "I simply want Morgana to come to court. She's been incarcerated at that convent since she was seven years old. She feels trapped there. She has no vocation, she has to sneak around to do any magical healing, and she wants to meet her little brother again." A pause. "Look, I promised I'd try to get Morgana the summoning spell, and I couldn't. So at least let me ask her brother to summon _her_. Non-magically, of course."

"On one condition."

"And that is?"

"You really can't meet Arthur as a nameless knight. Before I introduce you to him, pick a name."

 

[10]The Roman Empire dearly loved sending soldiers to Albion, and over hundreds of years, many, if not all, of the soldiers had come from the same general area—North Africa. This meant that Leodegrance's ancestors were a) Roman citizens who were most probably b) soldiers c) of North African descent d) who had married Saxon or Pictish girls and e) whose descendants had moved to Brittany. People tend to forget that many, many residents of the Roman Empire were legally Roman citizens, even if they'd never set eyes on Rome. The Roman Empire spanned most of the known world, after all. It wasn't solely composed of Italians.  
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[11]Roughly pronounced "MURTH-in."  
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[12]The treasury vault in the middle of a shrine was supposed to be insurance against theft, since presumably no thief would want to steal anything from gods who regarded the treasure much as a flock of hungry seagulls might regard a clownfish flopping around on a dock. Once you start thinking about gods and omnipresence, however, this theory starts to break down. This was why the Romans placed the regimental chest in a deep pit which was difficult to enter or exit with anything approaching ease. They decided that while the presence of gods could and doubtless would prevent theft, the presence of a large, inconvenient physical obstacle couldn't hurt, either.  
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***

He settled on Sir Redwald of Kynance Cove [13]. For some reason, Aziraphale thought this very funny and insisted on referring to him as "mouse-like Sir Redwald." Angels. Honestly.

Arthur not only listened to "Sir Redwald's" plea, he responded eagerly, and soon Morgana—now nineteen or so—swept into court, her face all but glowing with joy. Crowley would have been relieved had he not seen the brief shock and even briefer guilt in Arthur's face when he saw Morgana curtsey to him. Evidently she and Morgause looked very much alike. 

He could only hope that Arthur wouldn't blame her for what had happened with Morgause. A stupid thing for a demon to hope—it was entirely in Hell's interest for Arthur to blame Morgana for his ignorant incest, as such hypocrisy would end up poisoning both of them—but he did hope it. He liked the girl. And he knew what it felt like to be in a cage you couldn't get out of.

That was in April. In May, Guinevere arrived with her equine dowry.

Petite, dark-skinned Gwen—and she became Gwen to practically everyone very quickly—reminded Crowley of a cat. She was by turns elegant, aloof, mischievous, and a panther in miniature. Morgana all but adopted her at first glance, and it wasn't long before Gwen was calling her "my sister." Soon the two were all but inseparable. And when, shortly after the wedding, Arthur marched off to war again, taking most of the Breton horses with him, Gwen and Morgana ruled in his stead, though Kai was the ostensible regent.

The only person who wasn't particularly wild about Morgana or Gwen was Merlin, and it wasn't hard to see why. If the two of them were in the same room, Merlin's eyes tracked every step that Arthur took, every movement of his lips. He actually seemed to sit at attention when Arthur spoke. When Arthur grinned at him, Merlin seemed ready to burst with sheer happiness. They snapped at each other regularly, as their opinions differed on numerous issues, but they did so with the ease and familiarity of people who know each other very well and have no desire to wound or scar.

 _Arthur shouldn't have married Gwen,_ Crowley thought, watching Arthur gaze moonily after Merlin. _He's been married to Merlin for years._

Several times he considered telling Aziraphale about this, but he never did. It wasn't as if Arthur liking boys as well as girls was the worst thing in the world, and he was quite sure that the angel would be upset and would quietly suggest to Arthur that he needed to repent, because no matter what he, Aziraphale thought, there were rules against this. Crowley was pretty sure that Arthur was holding back because he _was_ repenting how he felt, and that penitence wasn't doing Arthur or Merlin one ounce of good. Guilt could be crushing, especially when all it did was highlight that you couldn't be the person everyone was demanding that you be.

Not that he knew anything about that, of course. How could he?

So he kept quiet, watched Arthur and Merlin as well as Arthur and Gwen, listened to Aziraphale grouse about major crises like the perpetually broken heating system in his section of Camelot ("There is never anyone around to fix the hypocaust! _Never_!"), and wondered what he was supposed to be doing here.

About a year after Arthur and Gwen's marriage, the War of the Remaining Holdouts ended. Around that time, Merlin concocted the idea of the cavalry becoming known as Knights of the Round Table, which led Aziraphale to comment that a round table sounded like the kind of thing you would find in a peasant's kitchen. Crowley thought it was a brilliant idea; no one could argue about who was sitting near the head of the table (and, therefore, had more status) because a round table didn't _have_ a head. 

He managed to wangle a seat at the table, which irked Aziraphale. "Really, Crowley. Someone who's actually qualified could have that seat. Couldn't you have just left it to chance?"

Crowley gave Aziraphale his best and most serpentine stare. "No. I couldn't." After all, how could he keep track of the king if he wasn't in a position to see and hear what the king was doing? And he hadn't done anything vile to acquire it; he'd just slipped a very persuasive suggestion in Arthur's ear.

And it was a good thing that he had. Because not long afterwards, he and the other knights, along with Merlin and Arthur, heard a very important piece of news long before Morgana did. Which was all backwards, because the "news" was a proposal of marriage from one King Uriens.

Uriens was the king of Rheged, an area that was, so far as Crowley could figure out, on the borders of northern England and southern Scotland. He was also one of the rebels who had not wanted Arthur on the throne at all, and he had only bent the knee to the young king a few months before. So asking Arthur for the hand of his older sister was, to use a word that had not yet travelled to England, _chutzpah_ [14]. Crowley was certain that Arthur would do the diplomatic equivalent of laughing in Uriens' face.

But to his astonishment, Arthur did not. In fact, he thought Uriens' proposal was an excellent idea, and urged Uriens to court, win and wed Morgana as quickly as possible. Crowley looked at Uriens—who was eighty-five if he was a day and who was possessed of an irrationally virtuous character (aside from the whole rebellion business)—and wondered if Arthur had taken leave of his senses.

"I doubt it," said Aziraphale when he told the angel the news in the old _sacellum_. "It's a matter of convenience, you see. Arthur is still feeling guilty about—well, you know."

"His accidental incest with his half-sister, Morgause." 

"Er...yes. And Morgana resembles her. You know that. As long as she's here, he remembers what he did and how he felt. Uriens lives at the back of beyond; Arthur would rarely see Morgana if she was wed to _him_. And Uriens is very old, so I imagine Arthur is thinking in terms of Morgana remaining...untouched by men's lust."

Crowley blessed under his breath. "I feel like introducing him to half of the lusty old men in this castle! Hasn't it occurred to Arthur that if he doesn't have a son with Gwen—and I know, I know, they're trying, but they're not having much luck, are they?—that any child Morgana has with Uriens will have a claim to the throne?"

"Unless Arthur and Morgause—"

"I still haven't found anything to suggest that. Or _not_ to suggest it. Someone is being very sneaky. And wouldn't Morgause's sons with Lot of Lothian have first crack before any hypothetical offspring of Morgana's?"

"Gawain, Gaheris and Geraint...legally, yes, but practically, no. They're very much Arthur's men. And not natural leaders. Agravaine might try for the throne, but he'd fail. His temper would get in the way." Aziraphale heaved a sigh. "Besides, Gwen and Morgana couldn't be closer if they were sisters. I can see Uriens thinking that if Morgana had a son, Gwen might not mind if he followed Arthur to the throne."

"And if Gwen supported the boy, Leodegrance, with his armies and horses, might well do the same. Especially if it was his daughter's wish."

"And if it would end by preventing civil war."

Crowley mulled all of this over. "So what's the catch?" he demanded. "There must be one. This is just too convenient. I can practically see Hastur's and Ligur's fingerprints all over this."

Aziraphale gave him a troubled glance. "You don't know. Oh, dear."

"Don't know what?"

"Morgana's being courted by a young man—has been for the past four or five months, I think. Accolon, his name is. Uriens' second son."

"Oh, that's going to go over well," Crowley said, wincing. "Are they infatuated or—"

"I think it's the real thing."

"Let me guess. Accolon won't want to embarrass his father and Morgana won't want to humiliate Arthur. So they'll both most likely keep quiet while Arthur—who thinks he means well, though he's just trying to get rid of his own guilt—forces Morgana into a marriage that's all but identical to the convent that we just freed her from. Only with 100% more potential for adultery!"

"I thought your sort didn't mind adultery," Aziraphale said, peering curiously at Crowley.

"I don't mind it! But I know Morgana. She was desperate enough to ask a demon for a summoning spell, just so that she could meet her baby brother. If you put her in a castle in the middle of nowhere with an old man that she barely knows and the man that she is genuinely in love with, what do _you_ think will happen? Because I think that she'd grab for whatever happiness she could find. And I have visions of things going the Greek tragedy route very quickly after that—revenge, banishment, filicide, patricide, you name it."

A long, painful silence followed these words.

At last, Aziraphale glanced at him. "All right. I might have...a kind of idea. It's not perfect and it might backfire, but I think it might be the best shot we've got. If you want to see it in action, turn yourself invisible after dinner and come to the king's quarters."

Crowley looked down his nose at Aziraphale. "Just what do you have in mind, angel?"

"Someone needs to speak for Morgana. Who do you think is best equipped to do that? Besides Morgana herself, I mean."

There was only one possible answer. "Gwen."

"Gwen," Aziraphale confirmed, smiling.

 

[13]Kynance Cove is part of the Lizard Complex in Cornwall, and contains a sizable amount of the metamorphic rock known as serpentinite. Sometimes when you can't shout who you are, you need to whisper it.  
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[14] _Chutzpah_ doesn't translate into English very well. Basically, it's sheer, bald-faced nerve—the kind possessed by a person who kills both parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.  
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***

The news of the proposal, as burbled by dear, garrulous "Brother Mungo," was a terrible shock to Gwen. Crowley, concealed by invisibility, could tell that by looking at her. Her pupils were wide and dilated, and she reeled as if she'd been struck over the head with the weightiest of broadswords.

Not that it was practical. People did lose friends. It happened all the time. But Gwen evidently would rather not lose this one.

"I see," she said in her Breton-tinged Latin, her lips scarcely moving. "Thank you for telling me, Brother Mungo. You have done me a great service this day."

She said no more until "Brother Mungo" left, or seemed to. Then she called for a maid, telling her to beseech Arthur to come to their quarters, for she had news that she needed to discuss with him.

"And do not let him put you off with promises that he will come after he has drunk a while longer or has listened to the end of the story someone is telling," she commanded the girl. "This is vital and will require much planning."

When Arthur arrived, Gwen rushed up to him, her expression filled with, if not cheer, then a good counterfeit of it. "Arthur, I have the most wonderful news! I've made a match for Morgana."

"You've made a— _what?_ "

Gwen laughed. It even sounded genuine. "I know, I know. You haven't even thought of such a thing. But so many young women are wed unhappily to sick or elderly or cruel men." Crowley mentally applauded when she didn't react to Arthur wincing at the word 'elderly.' "I was afraid of that myself, before I married you. And since Morgana is in love, I thought, 'Why not indulge her and promise her the man of her choice? I know that Arthur won't mind.'"

"Morgana's...in love?" Arthur looked as if he wasn't sure whether he should be offended or relieved.

"Very much so! And if she isn't plight-trothed by now, I would be astonished. Have you really not noticed? She's been all but dancing on air for the past five months. And she's so happy at the prospect of marrying and remaining at this court with you and me. She hasn't had us for long, and I'm not sure she ever expected to have either family or friends. I think that losing us now would break her heart. It would certainly break mine."

"One might almost think that you were in love with her," Arthur said, forcing a guffaw from his throat.

"Not as you mean," Gwen replied serenely. "But friendship is love, too. I want to see her exchange vows with Accolon; I want to hold her children and watch them grow up and spoil them as if they were my own. I want her to be as happy as she's been sad. And I know that you want that as well, which was why I promised her that they could wed."

It was all over at that moment, though Arthur held out for another hour and a half. He balked for some time when he realised that Morgana's Accolon was Uriens' second son, saying that the king's sister should marry a king, but Gwen pointed out that becoming the stepmother of the man you loved was at once too tragic and too farcical to wish on anyone, let along one's own sister. 

"But I promised that Uriens could court her!" Arthur all but wailed. 

"And he can," Gwen retorted. "He can court her. There was nothing in your promise to say that no one else could court her, was there? So Uriens will court Morgana, as will Accolon. And between the two of us—" She gave him a dimpled smile. "I think that Accolon will succeed."

***

Morgana married Accolon on Christmas Eve that year, much to the disgruntlement of Uriens; he felt that Morgana had shown very poor taste in wedding a young man who would never rule instead of a king. He sulked his way back to his kingdom in the north, calling for minstrels and bards from all over Albion to come to his castle and weave tales of his faithless betrothed and her traitorous lover, her stepson.

"Let him order singers to make up stories if it makes him feel better," said Morgana, smiling at her husband. "No one who knows us will believe a word. Why, the stories aren't even consistent!"

They also remained at court, Accolon as another Knight of the Round Table and Morgana as the best friend of Queen Gwen. Some people whispered that both women should have been breeding, one being a new-made bride and the other a queen who needed to provide an heir, but the king's scribe, Brother Mungo, merely smiled and said that doubtless children would come in their own time.

Two years passed. All seemed to be well. 

Then one night, in the wee small hours of the morning, Crowley got a message from his superiors—not from a wandering beggar or a possessed nun, but simply dropped into his head. It felt like an ice pick stabbing the brain.

Three thoughts fought for dominance in Crowley's mind. The first was simply: _I can't do this._ There were plenty of reasons why he couldn't, most of them boiling down to _This would be a bloody disaster, and it wouldn't even work._ But these reasons were more or less corollaries of the first thought, nothing more. 

The second thought was: _I'm going to have to find a way of doing this so that Arthur won't even consider listening. And then I'm going to have to lose the Sir Redwald identity, because whether I succeed or not, when I'm done, he's going to be so furious that he'll never want to see me again._

The third was: _If I don't do what I'm ordered to do, they'll destroy me. Or I'll wish they had._ And he knew that this was no more than the truth. 

Demons were not supposed to have ethical crises. And there was no time for this. No time at all.

Slowly he dressed, glamouring his eyes so that they would remain hidden in shadow, no matter what angle the light was from. Then he made his way to the king's quarters and knocked on the door.

Merlin answered. Of course he did; it was that kind of a night. Nothing was going to go well.

"What are _you_ doing here?' he demanded, his Welsh accent growing stronger as he gazed at Crowley.

"I had a premonition that I was supposed to be here tonight," Crowley said with weary impatience. "A feeling, if you will."

Merlin opened his mouth to argue; Crowley could feel the quarrel bubbling up in the human. He readied himself to lash out, silencing the wizard once and for all. Merlin and his destiny could go jump in the Corryvreckan Maelstrom [15].

"Let him in," called Arthur. "I have a notion of what to do about my...difficulty. And I...I think that he is the man to talk to tonight, not you."

Merlin froze. "I do not trust this...man...Arthur."

"Then stay," Crowley snapped, affixing Merlin with a glare. "It's not as if either of us is going to mention what happens tonight, is it? I'm certainly not." He shouldered his way past the spluttering Merlin into the chamber. "What is the problem, Your Majesty?"

Arthur spoke, his back turned toward the other two. "You may have heard about something that happened several Christmases ago."

"Yes," Crowley said, wondering why Arthur was still harping on that. "When you were up in the Orkneys, you had sex with Queen Morgause, who cast a summoning charm to bring you to her door. The rest of it was purely consensual, though. Oh, and she's your half-sister, but you didn't grow up with her and neither of you even knew that you were related when you met, so I think you get a pass on that." He belatedly noticed the stillness of the other two. "Sorry, was I not supposed to know that?"

"How did you know?" Arthur whispered. "I've kept that so close and secret..."

"It's as I said, Arthur. Sir Redwald is not a mortal man."

"Well, be he evil mortal, demon or spirit of the air, I need to speak to him tonight. For this is a dark business. I have found out that Morgause has borne my son—a boy of two or so named Mordred."

Crowley wasn't sure what to say beyond _Congratulations_. So he remained silent.

"The boy is a threat. If mine enemies knew of his existence, I would be ruined. No one would have a man who has committed such a sin as their king. So I have been thinking...I must eliminate that threat."

That sounded suspiciously bureaucratic to Crowley. He wondered if the vile little Development of Demonic Disservices Coordinator had inspired this idea or Arthur was just being quintessentially human. "Go on," he said slowly. "Eliminate how?"

"I've told you what I think of this," Merlin said. "It's a despicable idea, and if you carry it through, it will destroy Camelot as surely as you stand here."

Arthur ignored him. "I will send foot soldiers," he said to Crowley, "all experienced and all armed with knife, sword and spear. And they will kill every boy child of two or younger that dwells in the Orkneys. And then Camelot and I will be safe. Now, what say you? Can you think of a way to better this?"

Crowley gave the king a chilling smile. "No, of course not. There is no way that such a plan could go awry. After all, it's not as if any parents or siblings would try to save their babies, especially not a sorceress-queen who would know exactly who you were looking for and who could cast a glamour over Mordred to make him look like a baby girl or a sheep or even a fence post. And there's no way at all that the news would leak out that King Arthur, the wise and the just, had sent his soldiers to slaughter infants, making Camelot and all of its ideals a complete lie. And no children ever survive such slaughters and grow up to overthrow the villain who attempted to murder them in their cradles. There aren't billions of myths about that, no. A thousand mothers and fathers wouldn't grieve for their murdered children and call down ten thousand curses on you and your crown. Oh, and I'm fairly sure that permanent barrenness isn't a standard spiritual punishment in cases like this.

"Please. Go the Herod route. I'm sure that absolutely nothing will go wrong."

He paused for breath [16]...and then realised that the room had fallen silent. Arthur looked as if he'd had several anvils dropped on his head [17]. Merlin was wearing an incredulous expression that was somewhere between a gape and a grin. 

Arthur finally found his voice. "I—you think that you can talk like that to—the _insolence_ —"

"No, I disagree," Merlin said, his grin growing more pronounced with every syllable. "I think that we just received the best possible advice that we could on the matter. We were told exactly what to do and how to do it, as well as some fairly accurate predictions on how well it would work. I don't know why we got such a...thorough...description from a demon, but I'm willing to accept it."

"B-but it would be a disaster!" Arthur stammered, sinking onto a cushioned stool. "Everything would go wrong! Everything!"

"Which is exactly what I've been telling you for the past week."

"Oh. Yes. It is, isn't it?" Arthur gazed at his feet. "I don't know what to do now."

Merlin spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a very young child. "Possibly the opposite?"

"I just finished thinking of a detailed plan to murder my son and you want me to—what? Grant him lands and wealth and a title when he's grown?"

"You could bring him to court and claim him as your own. And face down your critics when they start talking about what an awful thing you've done. I doubt he could inherit the throne, being born out of wedlock...but his children could, if they were legitimate."

Arthur started at that. Evidently the notion of Mordred growing up and reproducing had never occurred to him. 

This really wasn't like Arthur. Crowley didn't think much of him—Gwen, Morgana and Merlin were running this show, not the young king—but despite sometimes making hasty decisions, Arthur did usually listen to people, and he wasn't the sort of person who took pleasure in slaughtering babies. Both qualities put him ahead of a fair number of emperors, not to mention people who'd never so much as bumped into a crown. Humans could persuade themselves to torture and slaughter other humans for the most nonsensical reasons, and insist that they were justified and righteous while doing it. Until tonight, Crowley would have said that Arthur lacked the ability to believe that lies were true, massacres were heroic, and viciousness was a peculiar kind of mercy. 

It wasn't that Arthur couldn't lie to himself. He could. He just wasn't any good at it. Crowley appreciated this—not because he was on Arthur's side or any such nonsense, but because casual cruelty got so boring after a while. Arthur's hypersensitive morality made him twitch at times and had, on occasion, made his tasks more difficult than they had to be, but ultimately, it came down to art. Did you appreciate the commonplace that had a million or so near-identical copies, or did you appreciate the rare and original?

Crowley preferred the latter. He would be the first to bless Arthur out for being aggravating, which Arthur was without even half trying, but his uniqueness made life more interesting. Turning Arthur into a flaccid, tedious, mindless puddle of a sinner would be a waste. It might be _someone's_ objective Below, but there was no craft to it. A thin patina of sin that one human passed on to others as if it were a contagious disease tarnishing their souls—that was the way to go. Quick. Efficient. Elegant, in a way. 

But baby-killing? He shook his head. Slaughtering infants, let alone possible offspring, wasn't sophisticated, nor was it desirable. Most humans, no matter how loathsome, drew the line at that. Temptations were supposed to be a well-nigh irresistible lure, not the sort of thing that would make even the most loyal lords revolt out of sheer disgust. Some demons, Crowley reflected, had no _style_.

Abruptly, he realised that Merlin and Arthur had been exceptionally quiet for some time. A glance in their direction revealed why. They were still talking—or Merlin was. Arthur had drifted away from loudly worrying about his bastard son and had begun...well, Crowley would have described it as "moonily watching Merlin speak," which was a long way from listening to him. 

Crowley decided that he'd had enough. He couldn't hang about here and politely ignore the crush these two had on each other while Arthur dithered over whether to murder his toddler son. He didn't have time for that; he had to get back to his own chambers and come up with a proper temptation to take the place of the baby-killing debacle. 

_If they're going to be distracted, they might as well distract each other._

Crowley slid into invisibility and snapped his fingers. Merlin, who'd been leaning close to Arthur to state some point loudly and emphatically, fell silent, put his hands on Arthur's shoulders, and then tentatively kissed him. 

When Merlin pulled back (and Crowley could all but see the apologetic "I don't know what came over me, sire" forming on his lips), Arthur blinked up at him in bewilderment. He didn't seem angry. He looked more like someone who had added 1 + 1 and somehow come up with 10. Perfectly nice number, and much more than he was expecting, but it had to be wrong...didn't it? [18]

At least, that was his reaction until Crowley, who felt that Arthur needed to focus less on right and wrong and more on practicality and base emotions, silently suggested to him that the kiss had been most enjoyable but that he should definitely try for a longer one.

The second kiss was much more enthusiastic. No more suggestions were needed after that.

Crowley—still invisible—was sidling toward the chamber door, hoping that he could open it enough so that he could squeeze out without either young man noticing, when the door swung wide open and Gwen ran in. Close on her heels was Aziraphale.

"Arthur! Arthur, Brother Mungo overheard what you were planning, and you mustn't..." Her voice trailed away as she spotted the two kissing (and half-undressed) on Arthur's bed.

Aziraphale tugged at her arm, his face a study in woeful shock. "Oh, my dear! I'm so sorry. Let's go. This isn't for your eyes."

Gwen shook off his hand and walked over to the bed. Arthur and Merlin, still clutching each other, had automatically turned toward her as she spoke and were now staring at her like frozen statues. "Well, finally," she said with just a hint of exasperation. "I thought you two were _never_ going to get on with it."

"You _knew?_ " Arthur said, his voice creeping up several octaves. " _How?_ "

"I _have_ been your wife for three years," Gwen retorted with some asperity. "Did you think that I never noticed you two...appreciating each other? There's only one thing that we need to discuss now."

Arthur sagged as if crushed by the weight of his own misery. 

Merlin held his head high. "You need not fear, Your Majesty. I shall go into exile and not say a word; no scandal shall touch you, Arthur or Camelot. Perhaps, in time, you may even forget this horror."

Both of Gwen's black brows climbed halfway to her hairline. "I was going to say that the only thing that we need to discuss is whether I should join you or leave you be tonight. We can make arrangements to share a bed later—if that's pleasing to both of you." Her dark brown eyes sparkled with mischief. " _I_ would not mind."

Crowley's mouth fell open. This was a response he hadn't anticipated.

"But on second thought," Gwen continued blithely, "I believe that we should wait until we no longer have an audience. Discretion is _so_ important at court. It's terrible when kings and queens make decisions without thinking." 

She took the elbow of Aziraphale, who was mumbling things about nobility and ideals and sexual purity, and steered him toward the door. "Come, Brother. Let's give them some privacy." She looked over her shoulder at the two and grinned. "Goodnight. I hope you have fun."

And ignoring Arthur's shout about whether she was shocked and Merlin's plaintive bleat about jealousy, Gwen, accompanied by Aziraphale, sailed out the door. Crowley waited a few moments; Aziraphale had been too upset to notice him while in the chamber, but the angel would find Crowley impossible to ignore if he galloped out of the room, following so closely that there was barely a finger's distance between them. Then, and only then, did he creep out, smirking to himself. Things could be very amusing now that Aziraphale knew and didn't think that he did.

First things first, though. Carefully, he arranged for Arthur and Merlin to forget that Sir Redwald of Kynance Cove had been present and to remember Crowley's words as Merlin's. This he reinforced with memories of terrifying visions of what would happen if Arthur followed through on the baby-killing. Sometimes an evil omen or two was quite useful.

That still didn't sort out the matter of the temptation. But as Crowley strode back to his own chamber, he began to get a glimmer of an idea. Perhaps...a search for something. A rare artefact, perhaps. That had possibilities. Still a bit vague, though.

 _"Crowley!"_ The word was pitched to ensure that no one who wasn't an angel or demon could hear it. 

Crowley paused on the threshold of his room and smiled at the sight of an extremely flustered Aziraphale. "Ah. Brother Mungo. Would you care to come into my room and have one of our theological discussions?"

Aziraphale glowered at him, and it was no wonder. Few of the knights cared to spend much time talking to a monk, and many had expressed the belief that scribes were of little use when you had bards and scops who could recall everything flawlessly. Crowley's willingness to speak to Brother Mungo had convinced half of the Round Table that Sir Redwald was unusually devout and that, therefore, no one could go far wrong heeding his advice on morality. [19]

"Very well," he said. "There are some questions I'd like to ask you."

***

Once they'd gotten the food and drink sorted out (Crowley transforming the eternal boiled mutton of Camelot into lamb kebabs, while Aziraphale transmuted a vinegary wine into something rare and Atlantean), Aziraphale asked his first question. "That awful notion of Arthur's, Crowley. Did you come up with that?"

"Give me a _little_ credit, Aziraphale. I don't know whose idea it was initially, but it wasn't mine. And I persuaded him that it was a dreadful idea."

Aziraphale put down his mug of Atlantean wine with a thud. "You told him _not_ to do that? _You?_ "

"Oh, please. One man ordering a slaughter of innocents to kill off a potential threat? It didn't work with Pharaoh, it didn't work with Herod, and it's not going to work now. And who does it help? Not my side. We'd lose every single one of the babies to Heaven. Scores. Hundreds. After all, they're far too young to have done anything wrong."

"It could still cause chaos." Aziraphale nibbled on his kebab. "I'd think that would serve your purposes."

"It _would_ cause chaos. But it would do so in the wrong sort of way. Once the news leaked out...there are people on our side who don't want to get involved with something in _this_ much bad taste. There might be a civil war, sure, but again, there'd be the king and his supporters on one side and the people who _don't_ kill babies on the other. Which means that half the people involved would be working for you." Crowley took a large bite of his transformed mutton and swallowed. "I don't see the advantage in convincing Arthur to do something _incredibly_ stupid just to set up a situation where we have a 50% chance of losing."

"Those are simply _reasons_ , Crowley. I don't say that you're incorrect, but—admit it. You said no because you didn't like it. You actually made a moral decision."

"I made a _practical_ decision. There's a difference."

Aziraphale paid no attention. In fact, Crowley noted that he was positively beaming. "A demon fighting on the side of the angels. I can't tell you how pleased I am."

"If you're going to be insulting, Aziraphale, you'll have to leave."

"All right, all right." There was a pause. "Er...you didn't happen to see anything unusual earlier this evening, did you?"

Crowley shook his head. Compared to that worrisome message that had been dropped in his head earlier, practically everything seemed normal. He really needed to find an alternative to that immediately, if not sooner. "Why?"

"Well..." Aziraphale hesitated and then whispered, "Gwen suggested going to bed with Arthur and Merlin! At the same time!"

"Shocking," Crowley agreed in the blandest voice possible. "Well, maybe she'll bring consensual polyamory back into style."

"Crowley!"

"What? It worked for King Solomon. He had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. A thousand spouses and lovers seems a bit excessive to me, but he was given wealth, power, wisdom and I don't know what else. Gwen's asking for two. Would you prefer that she take on nine hundred and ninety-eight more?"

"But what about the succession?" Aziraphale wailed."How would we know if it was Arthur's child? Have you thought about that?"

"Not much since the mess that Arthur nearly made of Morgana's marriage, no." 

Crowley sighed, let the effects of the alcohol vanish, and refilled his own mug, this time with a tart red wine from Italy, or what would eventually be Italy. It wasn't as phenomenal as Atlantean wine, but it had one advantage—he could drink the tart red without dreading the moment that his cup would be empty. It should be 'cup,' shouldn't it? 'Mug' didn't sound right for wine. And this definitely wasn't a goblet.

"Aziraphale? What's another word for 'cup'?"

"Um. 'Vessel?'"

"Not precise enough."

"'Stein'?"

"Steins and cups are not the same thing, Aziraphale."

"'Cannikin'? It's a small can or wooden bucket."

"No. Nothing seems to fit." When Aziraphale looked puzzled, Crowley explained about mugs of wine simply sounding wrong.

"There aren't a lot of words that do fit, that's the problem. A mug isn't a beaker or a pilsner glass or a flask, and I really can't see you calling it a grail."

"What's a grail?"

"A chalice. You drinking from a container with the same name as a religious object...it's a bit unlikely. It doesn't sound at all like you."

 _A grail,_ his mind whispered. That would do for an artefact. There had to be thousands upon thousands of chalices in the world. And "grail" was such a very odd word that everyone would picture it differently. 

Of course, such a quest wouldn't do him the least bit of good if humans didn't want to go on it.

"Aziraphale," he said. "About Arthur's awful idea. What if no one was around to carry it out? Or very few, anyway. Soldiers, knights, lords, and so on."

"Where would they go? They've plenty to do around here."

"I don't know. I'm thinking of a sort of scavenger hunt."

Aziraphale's blue eyes opened wide. "A _scavenger hunt?_ "

"People will look for the strangest things. Especially if what they're looking for is important. Or rare. Or so hard to obtain that just finding it would make them remarkable."

"You'd need something very special for that," Aziraphale replied in a dubious tone. 

"That's where I'm stuck," Crowley admitted. "I can't think of anything sufficiently odd that there are already legends about. I'm tempted to just pick something at random. A bowl. A spear. A cup of some kind." He shook his head. "I've got cups on my mind tonight. Sorry."

Aziraphale closed his eyes and then winced. The angel always winced when he cleared the alcohol from his system, it seemed. "I don't understand why you want to do this."

"I want to ensure that the demon who had the brilliant baby-killing idea won't have a chance to persuade or possess someone not fond of Arthur who's a trifle disaffected and who has ambitions towards the throne."

"Such as King Uriens."

"One of many," Crowley said."I strongly suspect that it would be much safer if those with noble blood and military training weren't around for a while. I don't know what to set them looking for, though. As you say, it has to be something special—so special that they'll look for it for ages without complaint. Magical, even."

Aziraphale was gazing at him with distinct unease. "Crowley...you're not planning on defiling or desecrating this whatever-it-is, are you?"

"I told you—I haven't actually settled on anything yet. And no. Desecration is not the endgame." Temptation was, but he wasn't going to mention that. "It doesn't matter if it even _exists_ , as long as there are stories about it."

"Oh, there are plenty of stories about the Holy Grail," Aziraphale replied. "And I doubt if anyone could find the real thing; it would have been made of wood or clay five hundred-plus years ago. Rather perishable materials."

Aziraphale related some of the stories. They sounded just about perfect to Crowley, for practically no human could touch the Grail because they weren't good or pure enough. Just seeing it could strike an ordinary sinner blind. And any human who was good and pure enough to touch the thing would die. Well, the stories said "would be carried off to Heaven," but for humans, that meant dying. So no matter what happened, anyone searching for it would lose. 

Crowley would have said that the Grail wasn't worth searching for, but he knew that this was exactly the sort of temptation that humans loved. What Arthur's followers _needed_ to do was develop a society rooted solidly in justice, righteousness and all of the other wearisome virtues that Camelot supposedly stood for. But that was boring. An adventure involving a one-of-a-kind treasure—a treasure that could prove the seeker was wondrous beyond words—was much more fun. 

And of course anyone on this quest was bound to find other adventures along the way that had nothing to do with whatever they were looking for. But the side adventures would prolong the main quest—for those who weren't killed, that is—because no one would know if an adventure was significant or not. The humans would see clues where there weren't any; daydreams would become signs and visions. 

Once this got started, they'd tempt _themselves_. He'd barely have to lift a finger. They would dive eagerly into a time sink that encouraged pride, vainglory, wrath—he couldn't imagine a quest that wouldn't lead to pointless battle, sooner or later—covetousness, the uncontrolled lust for fame, and sloth. Sloth wasn't just idleness. Ignoring one's obligations and letting talents go to waste _definitely_ counted.

And just to make it impossible for anyone to realize that this quest _was_ a temptation, this would be a quest for a holy object. Just sticking the word "holy" in front of words seemed to make people stop thinking. Arthur's knights and vassal kings would persuade themselves that they had a duty to find it. 

_A much, much better temptation than mere baby-killing. Take that, Dee-Three-Cee._

He must have smiled at that, because Aziraphale suddenly looked troubled. 

"Look," he said patiently. "This benefits everybody. The would-be assassins who were going to be flung at the Orkneys will be scattered. Soldiers and knights will be able to test their skill without starting wars to do so. Lords and kings will get out among the people, some for the first time in decades, and actually see some problems like poverty and injustice first-hand. Some of them will travel to distant lands and pick up knowledge they never would have known existed otherwise. Arthur, his lovers and his family will be happy and safe; maybe even Mordred will be, once his father acknowledges him and brings him to court. 

"I'm not saying that there won't be a downside to this. There's a downside to _everything_. But this won't end in massacre." _Well, it shouldn't. Put it that way._

"And this pointless quest that no human can possibly achieve? It's a waste of time, Crowley! It's—"

"Exactly what you asked me to promise three years ago."

"What?!"

"' This place is very important to humanity's future. All sorts of dreams, ideals and values—for good or ill—will be born here. Don't do more damage than you have to, all right?'" Crowley glanced at him. "Well, I'm trying not to do too much damage...while still doing my job. I'm even giving Arthur and his kingdom the chance to walk into legend. I can't _be_ fairer than that."

Aziraphale considered this. "Bards and minstrels will love the Grail quest," he said at last. "They'll spread the ideas of knighthood and nobility and the struggle to attain a goal despite impossible odds everywhere."

"Of course they will. Bards are ruthless."

"Doubtless that's why you're planning this. Because it will be so much easier for you to cope with these ideals rather than obliterate them so thoroughly that no one even remembers that they existed. Quite a lot of work, not to mention danger, to put yourself in for the sake of one brief, shining moment.[20]"

"Don't be ridiculous," Crowley muttered, miracling up some red wine that was even sourer than the last. "I don't care _that_ much about Camelot."

Aziraphale's smile, at once mischievous and delighted, momentarily bore an eerie resemblance to Morgana's. Crowley had never been able to deceive her properly, and he had a terrible feeling right this minute the angel could see through him and his plans as thoroughly as Morgana ever had. 

And Aziraphale's next words—clearly the last words on the subject, unless Crowley wanted to dig himself in even deeper by arguing—confirmed it. "Crowley. Who said I was talking about the _kingdom?_ "

 

[15] An eternally spinning whirlpool off the coast of Scotland that has no objection whatsoever to swallowing people or boats whole and dragging them some 650 feet below the surface.  
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[16] Sometimes you have to pause for breath even when your body, strictly speaking, doesn't _need_ to breathe.  
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[17] Which was appropriate, as Crowley felt as if he'd been dropping dozens.  
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[18] Several million computer programmers would have disagreed.  
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[19]This had just about driven Aziraphale mad when he first heard it, despite Crowley's protests that it hadn't even been his idea. By now, however, Crowley had stopped protesting and was simply rolling with it.  
\- back to text

[20]This phrase would later be echoed by a lyricist from New York called Lerner, who had absolutely nothing to do with Aziraphale. Probably.  
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End file.
